Movies That Freaked Out Celebs When They Were Kids

I have this theory that everyone was freaked out by something in their childhood, something that haunts them for years on end. My younger brother used to burst into tears if anyone so much as mentioned the Incredible Hulk (and boy, is he glad I just revealed that to the world). I have one friend who can't bear to watch balloons float up into the sky, and he's blocked out the memory of why that is, exactly (maybe his parents broke up while he was watching The Red Balloon?).

Me, I spent years traumatized by Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Patrick Walsh has already mentioned Willy Wonka in his brilliant post on non-horror movies that scared the crap out of him as a kid, but for me it wasn't the tunnel scene that did me in. All I remember is seeing a kid (Augustus, as it turned out) falling into a chocolate pond and getting sucked up a tube with a look of abject horror on his face -- and I ran from the room in a blind panic. From then on, even thinking about the movie made me shudder in fear; and when I finally forced myself to watch it just a few years ago, I felt 100 percent vindicated. Man, that is one creepy flick.

Celebrities aren't so different from you and me. Recently, in honor of Halloween, we asked a bunch of them what movie freaked THEM out when they were kids, and their responses were immediate, sometimes surprising and always interesting, even (or especially) if it wasn't a horror movie that haunted them -- Michael Douglas, for example, couldn't shake the memory of his father, Kirk Douglas, playing Vincent Van Gogh. But their confessions included tons of classic and obscure horror movies, too. Which movie makes Ellen Page cry after sex? Who spent their childhood terrified of Stephen King's clowns? Why did Cate Blanchett spend years avoiding swimming pools? Perhaps most interesting is that so many of them were allowed to watch horror movies when they were so young. Quick, someone call protective services! It's not too late, Adrien Brody!